Burning Bridges
by World'sOnlyConsultingTimeLady
Summary: All good things must come to an end. You know this intimately, but you never dreamed that the man who gave you heaven would hand you hell.


**First, you must allow me to express how deeply sorry I am about the lack of updates on Bath. An original idea gripped me tight and raised me from fan fiction, and I finished it a few days ago. This one-shot is me easing into Sherlock fan fiction again, and an apology. It's not my usual work, but I wanted to write something out of my comfort zone. **

**That being said, I have begun to write Bath again. I want to finish it before posting, however, which means it may be a little while longer before anything is posted on that story. Things are hectic right now, but I will not be giving up on Bath.**

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><p>It was an average morning, but it cut into your heart with every ounce of grief and anger as that fateful day had long ago. The day he left your life; the day he crushed your soul and his body into the pavement. The day he threw himself into the icy grip of death.<p>

Of course, he had to jump from the top of a hospital building. A place brimming with individuals whose jobs revolved around saving people.

Of course, he also renounced everything you ever knew and took his life in front of you. You, who not only offered your life in place of his time after time after time, but was also trained in the profession of saving lives. Occupying such a profession, especially when your job interlaced itself with the military, had acquainted you with the limits of mortality intimately. Death was not unfamiliar to you; it had borne many faces.

You just never expected it to don his.

Watching him plummet toward the Earth, experiencing a sudden hope for the impossible, had damaged you beyond repair. You had hoped to see his body defy gravity, had hoped to see bungee cords or an inflatable mattress, had hoped to awaken before the sickening thud to find it a hideous nightmare. The detective was a force of nature unlike anything you had ever seen; his every action held a distinct otherworldliness. Was it really so far-fetched for you to expect his death, or lack thereof, to be anything but ordinary? To be supernatural or extraordinary?

Instead, he fell, as an ordinary human would, and crashed into the unforgiving earth. To add insult to injury, his fall contradicted his whole character. It was suicide, you thought; it was _cowardice, _you scorned. It was false, in every way imaginable.

He'd healed you. He'd given you a life you'd always dreamed, a life you believed was lost until Mike Stamford introduced you to the enigmatic detective. And, for a while, your life was better than anything you could've imagined or had ever experienced. You were more than content; you were _happy. _He made you feel needed, made you feel alive.

All good things must come to an end. You know this intimately, but you never dreamed that the man who gave you heaven would hand you hell. You were content with dying _for_ Sherlock, but you never thought you would die _from_ him. The cure had become the disease.

It was too much, in the end, for you. He was more than a friend, more than any relationship you'd ever experienced. He was a companion and adrenaline-fix. He was addicted to God knows how many drugs, and you were addicted to the adrenaline being his companion provided.

You bitterly sighed at the thought, though not from guilt. Thinking of Sherlock Holmes in such a selfish manner had lost its sting long ago, you mused as you ran a razor lightly across your skin. Your belief in the man was quick to fade, but it didn't bother you anymore. He had been right when he denounced the title of hero. There were beings out there worthy of the title; however, none bore his name.

You continued to swipe the razor across your skin, each gash deeper than the last. Blood was everywhere, but all you felt was pain and ecstasy. Death was breathtakingly close, and blessedly familiar adrenaline filled what blood still flowed through you as your surroundings faded away into nothingness.

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><p>Light burned into your eyes, but you remained still. Darkness pressed against your flesh as you urged your stiff body forward, but nothing responded. Your awareness increased, and, to your dismay, you found that the light wasn't a shining beacon of the afterlife- it was the hospital light. The Darkness was just the hospital bed, and your body had refused your commands because you hadn't surfaced into reality yet.<p>

Exhaustion suffocated your limbs and mind as you blearily blinked at the lights above. How much longer must the bane of your existence's brother resurrect your empty shell of flesh and bone? Your soul had withered away long ago, why couldn't the rest?

You'd tried everything to leave this world, but each time, Mycroft Holmes found a way to keep you living. At first, you'd believed it had had something to do with Sherlock, very alive and very adamant to return to your side. Joy had filled you because you'd assumed that your life would return to normal. The detective would sweep into the flat, you would be pissed for a while, but eventually, forgiveness would ease your lives into normalcy.

That had been four years ago. It had taken three months and two more attempts at ending your life before you realized he wasn't coming. You would've moved mountains for him, travelled around the world on foot despite the impossibility of such a task, done literally _anything _for him, but that was one sided. Sherlock Holmes cared about himself and himself only. You were foolish to assume that his pompous exterior was just that, an exterior, a shell covering something good. Something worth fighting for.

You know now that he would never restore your life, even if he was alive. Why would he stoop to help you, broken little you, when there were far more interesting people out there? People less broken and needy than yourself; people alive and willing to challenge him in ways you never could. Jim Moriarty, for one. Curiosity swirled the stagnant waters of your mind at the thought of his 'evil' counterpart. Vaguely, you wondered what happened atop the roof of Bart's so long ago. The fascination was immediately squashed by indifference.

A nurse stared down at you, murmuring words that refused to reach your ears.

Mary, her name was. You only remembered because she was your nurse every time they found your body on death's doorstep. She was a newer nurse, one hired shortly after his leap, and her first encounters with you were not tainted with previous knowledge of your character, nor the loss of your job mere weeks after the fall. She had never spared pitying glances at you like most, though her actions were wrought with sympathy and grief.

When she realized you weren't listening, she sighed.

"Look," Mary said. "Normally, I wouldn't be allowed to interact with a patient like this, even with your unusual situation, but I am going to leave you my number anyway. I understand what you're going through, and if you ever feel like talking, I will listen." She smiled gently and waited a moment longer by your bedside before turning away and leaving your room.

A scoff was buzzing in your mouth, begging to be expressed, but there was a knowing glint in her eyes that silenced the urge. It was the first time you'd truly believed that someone could understand your situation.

When you were finally released from the oppressive building, you found that she'd scrawled her number in girlish handwriting on a sliver of paper and shoved it into your jeans pocket. The action made you feel slightly uncomfortable, but you ignored the sensation. You re-pocketed the number and cast her offer from his mind.

It took another attempt on your life for you to take Mary up on her offer.

You were bored, sick of everything, and in possession of the means necessary to end it all. Mycroft never made any move to confiscate your arsenal of razors, knives, or pills, though the gun had been stolen by Lestrade immediately after the fall.

"You don't get to end it too," he'd said as he shoved the weapon in his large coat pocket. Shortly afterwards, the D.I. had lost his job for association with 'the fraud,' and your gun became his escape as life proved too difficult to continue. It was a death you truly mourned, the loss of a good friend and the only person you had been willing to open up to. Sherlock's death had taken everything away from you.

The hospital greeted you once more when you woke, head throbbing with pain and annoyance. Mary didn't comment on your arrival, though her carefully-concealed disappointment was visible to you as she checked your stats. Mycroft eventually released you from the oppressive building, and you returned to your flat. Your new, detective-free, flat.

One day, you were staring absentmindedly at the wall, toying with the familiar urge, when you caught sight of the crumbled paper. Ink seeped through the folds, ink shaped into bold large letters, and you felt yourself reaching for the note rather than the pill bottle. Your hands shook as you typed the number into your phone and pressed the call button.

You didn't know what you expected to happen, whether you were planning on spilling your empty guts or maintaining casual conversation. A little bit of both was what came bursting from your chapped lips. Your voice was surprisingly impassive as you spoke of the day he came into your life. She was silent all throughout the tale, and at the end, she thanked you for sharing. You hung up as soon as she finished. Relief surged through your veins, a polar opposite to the familiar adrenaline, though every bit as strong.

The phone began to replace your tools of death. It became the thing you reached for when you were suffocated by the urge, a reprieve from pain. With each conversation, you spoke of a single memory. It alleviated your mind of him, a transfer of the disease from one to another, immune, human. A testament to the man who'd given you everything and taken it all in the blink of an eye.

Slowly but surely, you began to recover. You began to hold real, two-sided conversations with Mary. They came after the memories were gone, each one fading into the back of your thoughts upon verbalization. You found that she had lost her parents in a car accident, and her sister had succumbed to the same urges as you, though there were no pesky government officials there to revive her. In the end, Mary hadn't been enough; her efforts, however well-meaning, couldn't keep her sister alive.

Your conversations began to occur daily, without the urge prompting you to pick up the phone and her to answer. You still succumbed to the suicidal urge every once in a while, but they grew less frequent until you no longer kept an unnecessary amount of pills at your flat, the knives were replaced with new culinary-only counterparts, and your razors were only used to shave. The calls morphed into chats over coffee and other strictly platonic activities, until suddenly you found yourself asking her out on a date, and she responded with a smile and a nod.

A year passed in such a manner, mild but risk-free. You were not joyous, but you were surviving and content with your life.

Mary was wonderful. She was everything you needed, but she wasn't what you wanted.

You found yourself on autopilot with her, watching with apathetic eyes as she floated around your apartment, floated through your life. You wrapped your arms around her, but an entirely different emptiness, one you'd never felt before, encompassed you. It felt wrong to wrap your arms around her, to feel her lean into you with such love and trust that you needed but didn't return. It felt wrong and made you sick thinking about it, but now that you were out of the pit, you refused to fall in again.

So you proposed to Mary. You bought her a ring (with money you'd earned from your new job) and sunk to one knee, popping the question as you lifted the lid. She said yes and slid into your open arms, tears brimming from her eyes and wetting your shoulder. You returned the embrace, murmuring empty words of endearment in her ear. When she pulled away, you stretched your mouth into a grin, the first large, albeit false, smile to grace your face since the fall.

The wedding came quickly, and you couldn't help but watch Mary walk down the aisle with apathetic eyes. She was absolutely stunning, but your attention kept wandering to the observers, many of which shifted uncomfortably in their seats and watched the couple converge with skeptical gazes.

The minister began. You stood, staring at your beautiful soon-to-be wife, and forced a small smile to your lips. Mary returned the gesture, beaming radiantly at you. Not for the first time, regret surged through you, but you pushed it aside selfishly.

"If anyone feels this couple should not be united in Holy Matrimony," the minister droned, "speak now or forever hold your peace."

The audience shifted uncomfortably, murmuring softly, and a familiar man with raven-black hair and sharp features began to rise from his seat. Mary shuffled awkwardly and glanced at the minister, a plea shining through her eyes that shook you to the core. She knew of your inability to return the feelings, you realized, but she didn't care.

She was willing to deal with your problems. She was willing to continue to help you, to possibly restore you, if not to your former glory, then into something else. Something new.

Even _he _hadn't been willing or able to do that.

You send her a grateful smile, though this time it wasn't forced. It was genuine. For the first time, something akin to happiness stirred in you, something akin to hope.

The minister continued reciting the vows, and soon you and Mary were husband and wife, united in matrimony. You walked her down the aisle, the guests applauding halfheartedly, and the same man rose from the back. He made eager eye-contact with you, and you reciprocated. Your gaze met his coldly, and you held your wife closer as you passed.

He approached you once more, at the reception. He greeted you with pleading words, soft as honey and abundant as air, but your heart remained cold. He didn't take the hint; rather, a foreign fervor gripped him. You allowed him to ramble, a perverse enjoyment pulsing through you at watching the detective babble like an idiot. Disgust quickly replaced the enjoyment as you remembered the pain you experienced at his hand, the loss and devastation. Your soul and body had been wrecked by this pathetic shell of a man before him. Disdain and anger overwhelmed you. Was this how the detective had once felt around Anderson?

"Sherlock," you interrupted. "As far as I am concerned, you died that day. You were dead to me then, and you continued to be dead to me as I spiraled into depression. The man I am now is a product of your passing and Mary's support. Without her, I would be dead. I was lost because of you, and she found me. I want nothing to do with you, dead or alive."

He stood in dismayed silence for a moment, mouth agape, before you returned to your wife's side. The detective vanished from your mind as you celebrated your union, thoughts of him replaced of your future with Mary. After the honeymoon, you deleted your blog of your adventures with the detective. It was time to move on, to enter a new life.

You never saw the detective again.


End file.
